Just a guy who loves riding and writing about it

Grey Matter

If only it was as simple as black and white. The grey area that resides in the between black and white can put our grey matter to the test each and every day. Maybe when growing up, my life was more black and white because the Polaroid’s and television sets hadn’t received the color treatment yet. Like some old photograph of the family as we were loading up the car to leave Grandpa Todd’s house in Benkelman Nebraska to head home, we were oblivious to whether we lived in color. But I do think our whites were whiter.

Like some old photograph of the family as we were loading up the car to leave Grandpa Todd’s house in Benkelman Nebraska to head home, we were oblivious to whether we lived in color. But I do think our whites were whiter.

It goes without fail, as technology grabs us by the short hair we quickly end up expecting more. Once electric windows in our cars replaced the awful, exhausting and primitive way of manually cranking them up and down, we then decided AM radio wasn’t good enough. Don’t get me started on vinyl seats. I’ve never felt so alive when climbing in a hot car and letting the vinyl covered bench seat scald me. The familiar pattern of sweat on our backs during the summer would act as a primitive form of air conditioning once we exited the car. This my friends, was the birth of A/C in our automobiles.

There is a certain innocence to black and white. It takes the eye away from the pretty colors and lets us focus on what is truly being photographed. What better way to see me in my natural habitat than in monochrome. You are less distracted by the green in the grass or my dark blue jeans. Although my hair now is about as gray as the picture showed it to be then.

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2 thoughts on “Grey Matter”

You’re right black and white photos let you focus on the main image and there aren’t as many distractions to pull your eyes away from it. I love old photos like this. When looking at some photography, it’s clearly evident that filters were used to enhance it, and they do look good, but I love that I get to use my imagination more with black and white. I remember being able to ride in the back of a pickup truck and my uncle would go over the tiny hills in the road fast so it would “tickle” our bellies. Can’t do that anymore…